Tom Chappell founded a company called Tom’s of Maine in 1970.
He makes toothpaste, mouthwash, dental floss, soaps, detergents and deodorants with “natural” ingredients.
He doesn’t use dyes, preservatives, fake flavors or chemicals. He uses recycled paper for packaging. He doesn’t test products on animals. He pays employees well and lavishes them with benefits.
He donates 10 percent of his company’s pretax profits to charities. He helps clean up polluted rivers. He has written books on “values-centered leadership.”
“I grew up with parents who thought General Electric made everything more perfect,” he said Monday. “I didn’t think so. Progress is not necessarily our most important product.”
Tom is one of the good guys. As a boy, he sang in the choir of an Episcopal church. As an adult, he is quick to admit his mistakes. For instance, naming the company Tom’s was a bit egocentric, he told me. But now that this consumer brand has been established, he can’t start calling it Kate’s of Maine, after his wife, who co-founded the company.
Also, while Tom’s first detergent didn’t pollute, it didn’t clean clothes, either. And Tom once reformulated a batch of deodorant to make it more eco-friendly, but it made about half of its users smell like they were biodegrading. The company recalled it at a cost of about $400,000.
Tom was in Denver to speak at a periodontists convention. He’s also promoting an episode on the PBS series “Healthy Body, Healthy Mind.” He’s talking about new research connecting bad oral health to everything from weakened immune systems to heart attacks.
“If we’re not flossing, we’re asking for it,” the dental-floss tycoon said.
Tom is tall and handsome, with thick gray hair and metal-rimmed glasses. But when Tom had his midlife crisis in the 1980s, he did not glom on to a trophy blond. Instead, he went to Harvard Divinity School. Tom wanted to know if God had bigger plans for him besides making soap and toothpaste. Apparently, God did not. But this theological pursuit grounded Tom in something he always believed.
“The corporation, as a vehicle, did not need to be amoral,” he said. “It could be moral.”
It could care for people and the environment – and still make a profit.
Tom’s company has grown to about $50 million in annual revenues and commands 4 percent of the toothpaste market, which is dominated by Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive. The company has about 160 employees.
Earlier this year, Working Mother magazine named Tom’s one of the best small companies for working women. It gives employees four weeks of paid leave after a birth or adoption – men, too.
Tom, however, has one thing in common with every CEO. Despite misgivings about “progress,” he needs growth. He wants to be a billion-dollar company. And to do this, he needs Wal-Mart.
If Tom’s is known for treating its employees well, Wal-Mart is well-known for just the opposite. The world’s largest company is in perpetual labor litigation.
“They have a long way to go in terms of meeting consumers’ and citizens’ expectation of how workers should be treated,” said Tom. “I’m not pleased with many of their policies, but I’m not going to let them be dismissed categorically.”
Indeed. Tom’s toothpaste has been available at Wal-Mart for years.
“Wal-Mart is a pioneer,” Tom said. “They are founder-driven. (Sam Walton’s) mystique still drives that place. He’s on the walls, everywhere. … When they innovate, they crush their competition. They need to be applauded for things like that. The other national chains would kill to be better at innovating. … They don’t know how. … That’s why they’re struggling. That’s why Albertsons is for sale. … We have a lot to learn from Wal-Mart because they are great businesspeople.”
And what about the small businesses they crush?
“Would you rather be doing business in your neighborhood store with the second generation that doesn’t know how to run the business? You’d pay more,” Tom said. “You’re going to be irritated with the service, and you’re going to wonder why the merchandise isn’t better.”
They’d probably sell you Crest, too.
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to Al at denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis, 303-820-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
